Kristina Shen is a Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the world’s leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Pinterest, Skype, Box, LinkedIn, Yelp and many more incredible companies. As for Kristina, she serves on the boards of DoubleDutch, Glint, Retail Solutions and Zoosk and is also a board observer with RainforestQA, Vidyard, Gainsight and ServiceTitan. Kristina is also one of the best data gurus as the co-author of Bessemer’s State of the Cloud 2016 and 2017 and Bessemer 10 Laws of Cloud, which captures the top trends among leading public and private cloud computing and enterprise mobile companies. Due to Kristina’s success she has been named to both Forbes and Business Insider’s 30 Under 30 in 2014 and 2016, respectively.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
How Kristina made her way into the world of cloud investing and came to be the data guru for much of the cloud landscape? What does Kristina fundamentally mean when she states the key question is, is there velocity in this SaaS business? Is velocity just about revenue or ARR growth? How can startups present real velocity with their sales funnel? How can startups present further velocity through their SQL process? Why does Kristina believe that “private SaaS multiples are not expensive and we need a new framework”? What makes the existing framework inaccurate? What does this mean for the way Kristina assess ARR multiple and growth rates? How does this framework alter Kristina’s perception of the often hailed “Rule of 40”? How does it change with scaling? What are the core elements Series A SaaS investors focus on today? With regards to revenue benchmarks for the A round, where do they need you to be both on the low and high end? Where do Series A investors expect startups to be for y/y ARR growth? What core metrics are required to successfully raise your Series B in SaaS today? What does Kristina think is the fundamental difference between Series A and B today in SaaS? What can founders do to show repeatability and reliability of revenue streams as they move into the B round?60 Second SaaStr?
What does Kristina know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? Questions from Jeremy Levine: What would Kristina like her legacy to be as an investor in 20 years time? What keeps Kristina up at night? Is it worse to see an amazing deal and pass on it or to have never seen it at all?If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Kristina Shen
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SaaStr 735: How to Navigate the Shift to Generative AI with PagerDuty’s CEO Jennifer Tejada
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SaaStr 732: What It’s Like Running a Profitable $400M Public SaaS Company with Vimeo CEO Adam Gross and SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 731: 10 Things Founders Should Know About Getting Acquired with Brett Goldstein, Former M&A at Google
SaaStr 730: How to Price and Package AI SaaS Products with Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures
SaaStr 729: 6 Questions Founders Should Ask Themselves to Drive Value from Generative AI with Base10 Partners
SaaStr 728: How to Double Your Magic Number and Increase Your Go-to-Market Efficiency with Sapphire Ventures
SaaStr 727: High-Velocity Techniques to Maximize Sales with Gusto’s CRO and Head of Go-to-Market
SaaStr 726: How to Build Out Your SDR Function in 2024 with Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 725: Mastering High-Volume, Low-CAC Marketing: Strategies from Gorgias, Vercel, and Hypergrowth Partners
SaaStr 724: CRO Confidential: Bringing Product-Led and Sales-Led Growth Together For Go-To-Market Success with Giancarlo Lionetti, CRO of Zapier. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 723: Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, and Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder of SaaStr: Answer Your Top 10 2024 Customer Success Questions
SaaStr 722: 2024 State of SaaS: Trends and Predictions with SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin
SaaStr 721: How Revenue Leaders at Box, Calendly, and Lattice Scaled From $0 to $100M+ and Beyond
SaaStr 720: CRO Confidential: What It Really Takes to Be Successful in Enterprise SaaS Sales with Christian Smith, CRO of Splunk. Hosted by Sam Blond, Partner at Founders Fund
SaaStr 719: What's New at WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automatic and Co-Founder of WordPress. Hosted by Jason Lemkin, Founder and CEO at SaaStr
SaaStr 718: Predictions for Venture, IPOs and the State of SaaS in 2024 with SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin and Harry Stebbings, Founder and Host of the 20 Minute VC
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